Happy 9/11 everyone!
Err... wait, I suppose that's not how it works.

Well, if you're looking for snivelly patriotic bullshit, this ain't the place. But I bet you knew that. I'll leave the flags the candles for the major corporation who, in the true American image, are spending volumes of money to pretend they care. Because, of course, the one who pretends they care the MOST (and consequently spends the most money) will get the most money back from the easily suaded sheep of middle america.

Today I made sure to do my part to overthrow the Bush administration. I visited Planned Parenthood, discussed the gnarly details of my unmarried sex life with a woman I don't know (but who was very nice), recieved free! birth control thanks to the government (who is now threatening, of course, to cut the program) and promptly went home and put it to use. Well, no, I didn't, but I could have and that's the POINT, dammit!!

So I didn't set off special fireworks (on the backs of plastic army men) or light a candle for the people who were lost in the tragedy. What I did was more poignant and more true to myself and to america than any of that drivel. I carried on.

Today I looked out the window and it was any other day. It was a blue sky and business as usual. I was not any less cheerful than I was yesterday or will be tomorrow. I was, simply, me. I didn't spend a moment of blissful depressing reflection. In fact, 90% of my day has been spent forgetting what day it is. I had to ask two people for today's date while filling out forms...just like yesterday.

People act like we're not the only country to ever experience a tragedy. Like the attacks in New York were the biggest goddam affront to ever happen to the citizens of the world. Like more people died there than do every week at the hands of ours and other "friendly" governments. Sure, we didn't see it coming like you do in war or whatever our version of "war" is these days. Sure, it pissed us off. But rather than making today about remembering, which I can see as serving as little more than an excuse to cower in our boots, let's make today about moving on. Let's make it a selfless day and a nationless day.

Today I ate vegetarian and cheered for the anti-war rally outside City Hall. Today I snorted with cynicism at the conservatives waving flags with tears in their eyes. For who? For their long-ded grandparents? Far more people have died in the year since 9/11 of equally tragic means on a much smaller scale and we don't spend every day mourning their passing... don't get me wrong, I WILL light a candle and say a prayer before I go to bed and I do pity all the families who lost pieces of themselves to terror. I can't even IMAGINE what it would have been like to be on those planes. I was wrought and destroyed that week just like much of America was. But I'm not any more. I've moved on. I won't forget but I see no point in getting riled up, either. It doesn't make sense to make 9/11 a 'holiday'.

Why does this have to be our excuse to "pull together"? Shouldn't we pull together anyway? And are we any more together than before or is the dichotomy just more strictly US and THEM, PRO-"WAR" and ANTI-"WAR", PATRIOTS and the WHO-GIVES-A-SHITs? We've all grouped ourselves accordingly, nicely labelled and compartmentalized for future use in case of an emergency like life is predictible, like we'll be able to see what comes next or controll it if we're one way or the other. Why does this event have to "define" my generation? It doesn't define me. Who I am has nothing to do with the Al-Quaida or with Bush or with a few large explosions. I didn't lose anyone in this tragedy, and neither did most of America... but somehow most of America has such a low sense of self-security that they seem infinitely more upset and offended than I ever could be. Of couse I was upset, of course I hid under my bedsheets. But not any more and never again.

So I won't tell you where I was when I heard or how I ran around the house yelling in my underwear. (Besides, Katie has a better story about threesomes the morning of the twin towers anyway) I won't tell you what it felt like to watch TV for nine days straight, two channels at once, and the soullessness that crept into my life those days and for the next four months. I won't tell you 'cause you know. But I will tell you that I'm stronger and better. Not cause some shitheads decided to pull a religious stunt, not cause Bush says I should be, but because I chose to be. You won't read my self-declaration, I've already written it, but I will declare this:

I'm not proud to be an American yet, I'm still figuring out what that means. I'm proud to be me. And I'm proud that that means today is a day like every other; one more trip around the sun, one more chance to be my best. I don't need an excuse for that.

This has been your 9-11 rant.

(I sure hope the Bush administration never finds this page. Imma goin to jail!)